NC parents, students urge lawmakers to repeal class size mandate

State lawmakers are headed back into special session this week, with a new push to repeal the controversial class size mandate.

Parents and students from across the state rallied against class size mandates on Jones Street in Raleigh Tuesday. They urge lawmakers to repeal the law, which limits the number of students per classroom in kindergarten through 3rd grade.

Renee Sekel's says her three children have already seen their physical education and art classes cut in response to the mandate.

"Wake County, by next year, needs to build 14 new schools to comply with this mandate and not have our children's instruction suffer. That's impossible," she said.

To comply with the limits, Wake County said it will be forced to shuffle special teachers out of their current roles, reassign some students to other schools and boost the number of children in upper grade classrooms.

Keith Poston, executive director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, is pushing lawmakers to repeal the mandates this week or fund 4,700 new teaching positions.

"Is that really what our parents want?" Polson said. "Just to have 18 kids in 3rd grade we'll take 30 children in 4th and 5th grade and eliminate PE and foreign languages? I don't think that's where people want to go."

Supporters of the mandate, including Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, said lawmakers have already allocated tens of millions of dollars.

"Even though some local school leaders decided to use the extra state funding to benefit their own spending priorities instead of to reduce class sizes, those reductions have already been fully funded," Berger said.

Many parents beg to differ. Local districts will submit two sets of data to the Department of Public Instruction over the next few months detailing how that allocated money is being spent. Legislative leaders say at that point, they'll decide the next steps.